Pre-K teachers speak out about AI, instructional materials, training and pay in surveys
About 30% of preschool teachers in public schools said they used generative artificial intelligence in their job during the 2024-25 school year, according to research by Rand Corp. released in December.
That’s low compared to K-12 teachers, with high school educators incorporating AI at the highest rate at 69%. For middle and elementary school teachers, usage rates were 64% and 42%, respectively. Researchers said the lower usage rates among pre-K teachers may be due to concerns about young students’ screen time during the school day.
However, more than 80% of pre-K teachers agreed to any extent that ed tech in general “could be helpful” for a variety of purposes such as exposing students to the outside world, communicating with families and documenting students’ learning progress.
“In general, teachers are pretty optimistic that tech could be helpful,” said Jordy Berne, an associate economist with Rand, during a December press call on the findings. The survey data was collected from 1,586 pre-K teachers in spring 2025.
For ed tech specifically used with students, nearly all pre-K teachers said they had used online video or audio in their classrooms for activities like movement and dance breaks, Berne said. Interactive white boards are commonly used, teachers told researchers, because they are tactile and fun for students to use.
Fewer than half of surveyed public school-based pre-K teachers had used educational programs on digital platforms. This is also likely due to concerns about too much screen time, Berne said.
For three of the four topics in the survey — instructional planning, delivering instruction and student assessment — 70% or more of pre-K teachers said that they had received professional learning on using ed tech of any kind. However, 59% of teachers reported that they needed a little or a lot more professional development in one or more of the topics.
These findings point to a need for more professional development in ed tech for pre-K teachers, the Rand report said. It’s also an opportunity for ed tech developers to focus on how their products affect children’s social and communication skills, the report said.
Additionally, the report suggests state legislators and school district leaders should pay careful attention to how pre-K programs allocate students’ time between screen-based educational tools and more traditional early learning activities.
Rand’s pre-K ed tech findings were released along with a suite of research about pre-K teacher instructional materials, training and compensation.
Instructional materials
Pre-K educators feel positively overall about their instructional materials, including those for instruction in literacy, numeracy and social-emotional development. However, they were less positive about whether their materials supported differentiation in students’ learning or supported diverse students.
Only about half of teachers said their instructional materials were adequate for meeting the needs of English learners and students with disabilities. These results were drawn from two surveys and 13 focus groups that included nearly 2,500 pre-K teachers.
Differentiation for diverse student groups is “pretty much the area where teachers feel like their materials are falling short the most,” said Ashley Woo, an associate policy researcher at Rand.
About three-quarters of focus group participants said that their materials often did not meet their students’ learning needs because they were too difficult for students or did not provide the teachers with enough guidance to address the broad range of needs and ages in their classrooms. These teachers said they had to modify instructional materials to match students’ learning needs and abilities.
The Rand research suggests that nearly all pre-K teachers used a combination of multiple instructional materials, often supplementing commercial materials with those that they sought out or created themselves.
The report recommends that state and district education leaders should provide principals and pre-K teachers with clear guidance on selecting high-quality materials. It also suggests curriculum providers should review their materials to ensure there are resources for meeting the learning needs of children who require more support.
Professional development
In addition to needing more training on supplementing and adapting materials to meet the needs of children with disabilities or English learners, pre-K teachers voiced a need for professional development in managing children’s behavior, supporting child cognition, and teaching math and scientific reasoning, another Rand report said.
Public school-based Pre-K teachers said they received about eight hours per month in professional development, according to the findings from 1,586 survey participants. Nearly all pre-K educators reported receiving training on teaching social and emotional skills, teaching language and literacy, and managing student behavior at some point in their professional careers.
They were less likely to get training in teaching math, understanding child cognition and development, and supporting motor and physical development.
The highest-need training topic was managing children’s behaviors, with 64% of pre-K teachers calling for this. Teachers said this is due to students needing more support for developing their social and emotional skills or approaches to learning, such as cooperating and interacting with others, following routines, and developing independence and the ability to self-regulate.
Woo said this research connects with the findings from the instructional materials survey that showed pre-K teachers used a mix of instructional materials to support students. “We think this probably suggests that no single material is adequate for supporting all of students’ needs,” she said.
Pay and benefits
Fewer pre-K teachers said they intended to leave their jobs, and about half those polled said they got salary increases, according to research into results from 1,427 pre-K teachers who completed a spring 2024 survey and 1,586 pre-K teachers who completed a spring 2025 survey, according to Rand.
Of the pre-K teachers who received a salary increase, $3,000 was the average amount — not adjusted for inflation — with salaries rising from $63,600 in 2024 to about $66,800 in 2025. This 5% bump is slightly higher than the 4% increase K-12 teachers saw over the same time period, according to Rand and other research.
When it comes to common benefits, about 75% of public school-based pre-K teachers received paid sick leave, payment for health insurance premiums, paid personal time off and contributions to a retirement or pension plan in the 2024-25 school year. They were less likely to receive uncommon benefits like paid parental leave or additional compensation for working more than 40 hours a week.
Pre-K teachers were also less likely to report wanting to leave their jobs at the end of the school year, from 18% in spring 2024 to 14% in spring 2025.
Several factors may influence retention and the pay and benefits status for pre-K teachers, including overall job labor market conditions, Berne said. “We view this as kind of a mixed picture in terms of working conditions” for pre-K teachers, he said.
link
